Private Party Acquisition: What You Need to Get Started

When a dealership decides to start getting more aggressive in buying cars off the street there are alot of questions to be answered. Who’s going to do the buying, who’s going to receive the cars, what’s our goals, do we have a specific strategy? It can become overwhelming, so we wanted to summarize the key ingredients to a successful process when starting out.

Even if you are already absorbing inventory from local sellers this quick start guide will open your eyes to see what is most important and what is just a distraction.

Here are the five most important things you need to get started acquiring private party vehicles. 

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1. Dedicated Buyer(s) 

‍BDR: Also known as a BDR (Business Development Rep) someone who spends a decent amount of their time daily focusing mainly on purchasing. 

Compensating your buyer 

This buyer/outreacher should be heavily incentivized to do as much outbound communication activity as humanly possible to help the managers/decision-makers buy cars for the dealership. 

*Protip: If you want our exact pay plan that we used back in our dealership and our dealers still use today go to vettx.com and submit your email for a free market quote! 

Work ethic over experience 

Finding the right person is more important than finding someone with a wealth of knowledge about the industry, appraising cars, etc. 

The three main things we look for in this BDR are: 

1. Looking for a challenge
2. Fast and Efficient on the computer/takes great notes
3. Aggressive and hungry to make money 

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2. Structure System: 

You need to decide how to structure your team. Do you have the resources for a two or three-tier system? Someone to book out the cars, call the sellers, and someone to stick a target price on each vehicle. Or just a BDR and decision-maker? What kind of resources can you deploy?  

*Protip: With VETTX dealers won’t need a booking agent because we will enrich every vehicle that pulls into the system with pricing, history, and seller information. 

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3. Set Goals: 

Suppose you don't buy cars off the street, just starting, or haven't had too much success. In that case, it's probably better to set goals around certain KPIs such as outbound calls made, number of offers, or appointment schedules instead of starting with the number of vehicles purchased. By meeting your outreach and offer goals, your team can gradually scale those up to meet your purchase goal. If you’re buying a bunch of cars currently off the street then you can get a little more detailed. 

*Protip: VETTX allows dealers a detailed analysis of all their buyer activity, purchases/appointment results, and internal communication to take out all the guesswork.  

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4. Design Strategy: 

1. Are you a heavily back-end inclined store? 
2. What's the target front-end spread? 
3. What's your price point sweet spot? 
4. What makes are the makes your targeting? What are we basing that on?
5. Are there any makes you not willing to buy? And why?

*Protip: Remember always to reevaluate these parameters and adjust accordingly

*Protip: We have built a “Checklist” for getting your goals and strategy down on paper that our dealers LOVE. To get a free copy send us a DM or email to max@vettx.com

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5. Organization & Communication: 

You will need to implement some form of tracking system to organize your opportunities, hot leads, purchases, etc. 

Either a CRM, spreadsheet like Google Sheets or a VAM (Vehicle Acquisition Management) tool like VETTX is necessary to consolidate all seller correspondence and contact information. 

You will also need an efficient line of communication for your team to communicate on deals. We don't recommend using your CRM or DMS for this since these deals aren't customers and you don't want to mix non-customers with current customers. If you aren't using a VAM (Vehicle Acquisition Management) tool then something like: 

1. Slack
2. Text Group chat
3. If your team uses Google for your work emails we recommend Google Spaces or Google Chat. Most external and internal correspondence will be in the same place. 

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Scaling your acquisition system

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You obviously will need much more than that, but this will give you a solid starting place. 

We have tons of successful SOPs at our disposal for a dealer wanting to up their private party acquisition game. 

If you are serious about scaling your acquisition efforts we have some of the best live one-on-one training with the best buyers in the nation that can show you EXACTLY how dealers are buying dozens if not hundreds of vehicles month over month. 

For more information check out www.vettx.com and discover how to master your market

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